Distributed computing environments provide users with computational operations, software, data access, storage and network services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system delivering the service. A distributed computing environment typically involves dynamic, secure, and scalable provisioning of virtualized resources such as virtual machines, storage volumes, and networking resources. A virtual machine (VM) is a software-based emulation of a computer which operates based on the computer architecture and functions of a real or physical computer.
Systems management refers to the enterprise wide administration of distributed computing systems. A distributed computing system is a software computing system in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate operations by passing data messages. System management may involve hardware inventories, server availability monitoring and metrics, software inventory and installation, anti-virus and anti-malware management, user activity monitoring, capacity monitoring, security management, storage management, and network capacity and utilization monitoring. “System maintenance tasks” are also known. Herein, system maintenance and/or management tasks will be collectively referred to as system management tasks.